


i'm hopelessly hopeful (you're just hopeless enough)

by thememoriesfire



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-12
Updated: 2011-05-12
Packaged: 2017-10-19 07:33:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/198453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thememoriesfire/pseuds/thememoriesfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I remember quite clearly when you were the bane of my existence.  It seems almost impossible to believe now.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm hopelessly hopeful (you're just hopeless enough)

It’s a completely average day.

Or, well, as average as days get for pregnant sixteen year olds, anyway.

In the greater scheme of things, there is nothing particularly special about arriving in the choir room and seeing Rachel press a different keys on the piano--Brad arrives right on time, not twenty minutes early like Rachel does--to warm up her voice.

Those few minutes pre-practice is one of the few moments in a day when being near Rachel isn’t grating, actually. The baby seems to like the ladders she sings; Quinn can feel her settle, and it’s almost like she herself is splitting in half--her stomach cranes towards Rachel even though the rest of her is moving cleanly to the other side of the room.

Rachel looks at her for a second, mouth open, lingering on the last note she’s holding, before her finger hits another note on the piano and her voice follows, notching up again, and again, and again.

Quinn isn’t watching, but the baby is. She’s flipping through last month’s Cosmo for advice on how to stop breaking out from pregnancy hormones, but all she can find is some tips on how to give the perfect blowjob, which isn’t going to help her an awful lot when the next time she’s planning on looking at a penis is approximately _never_.

Rachel’s picking up in pace and in pitch, and even though she’s still mechanically brushing through pages, something about the way in which Rachel switches effortlessly from her chest to her head voice once she hits the high C makes Quinn incredibly anxious.

Maybe it’s just the baby, though--twisting in her stomach, making a general fuss, exactly as distracting and irritating as Rachel is. (The similarities stop at the vomit, because she’s never actually _thrown up_ from being near Rachel before.

… give it time, though.)

Then she feels it, and she gasps audibly.

Rachel cuts off half-note, which never happens, and is by her chair in seconds. “What is it? Is it--is something wrong?”

Quinn feels words lock down her throat, she can barely even get air in, but her hands are moving of their own volition, grabbing Rachel’s hand--so soft, so _small,_ and her stupid insults aren’t even on point, because Rachel’s not mannish or trollish or a patch of _stomach hair_ \--and pressing it to her stomach.

“Oh,” Rachel exhales.

It’s possibly the quietest and most gentle sound she’s ever made, and Quinn can’t stop staring at the way Rachel’s face telegraphs all the emotions slipping through her mind in just a few seconds: confusion, surprise, a first small smile, and then a second much wider one.

She wonders how much easier life is when you don’t have to keep up appearances. Maybe Rachel has figured out all the secrets that Quinn can’t get her hands on, or maybe they’re just two completely different people, with hands clasped over her disgustingly swollen stomach, feeling a baby kick for the first time.

“Should I get--” Rachel starts to ask, and then frowns, because of course there are two boys who would be invested in this. At that thought, some of the euphoria of seeing every single one of the things she _wishes_ she could say out loud on Rachel’s face slips away from her.

“No,” she says, more roughly than she means to, and so she clears her throat and says it again.

Rachel’s third smile--the sunny, unimpeded one that she only reserves for occasions when she’s absolutely not thinking about herself--makes something twist in Quinn’s gut.

It doesn’t have a _thing_ to do with the baby, but almost in a mirror to Rachel’s hand, hers suddenly aches to reach out and touch Rachel’s face.

It must be the hormones, she thinks, and forces herself to look away.

“I was hoping she would be a ballet prodigy, because I’m sure you would prefer grace to athleticism,” Rachel says, after a moment, and then looks at their joint hands, “but it looks like you’re getting a soccer player.”

“Yeah,” Quinn exhales, shakily, and wonders if Rachel can _tell_ that she’s being stared at. It’s easier to wonder about that than to wonder why on earth she’s looking to begin with.

“There are a lot of scholarships available for collegiate soccer, however, so perhaps we should look at this as an important portent of things to come in her life,” Rachel says, in a tone of voice that makes it sound like she’s betraying a confidence, somehow, and Quinn can’t help the laughter that bubbles up in her throat.

When Rachel smiles, it hits her suddenly that Rachel’s insane rambling is possibly deliberate, and that this is the first time in about five months where she’s actually _not_ thought about how her life is over for a whole three minutes.

That, too, is easier to think about than the fact that for one crazy second there, she almost wondered what it would be like to kiss Rachel Berry.

*

The cafeteria food makes her nauseous.

Not that it doesn’t _normally_ , but she’s no longer a Cheerio, and she’s about four weeks away from giving birth, and even though she can’t afford to get all the medical advice that she would like to get, it’s pretty clear that the mystery meat isn’t going to give baby Fabray everything it needs.

Something of what she’s thinking must show on her face when Rachel shows up next to her and requests “absolutely nothing except the organic vegetables”, and consequently gets a carrot on her plate.

Quinn considers a joke about the Sue Sylvester guide to weight loss, but she’s not exactly known for her sense of humor these days. Or _ever_. She’d probably just terrify Rachel, or something, and that’s lost most of its appeal these days.

Santana thinks she’s going soft. Quinn thinks Santana should experience the joy of constantly having a bowling ball nudge into her bladder for four months, and then they can perhaps have a discussion about what ‘soft’ means.

(She already knows that next year, Santana will be crawling in the dirt for her. If she wasn’t so close to sitting down on the floor and crying about how much her back hurts right now--which she’ll never _actually_ do, of course, God--she would actually be getting a lot of strength from that thought.)

“Is that all you’re having?” Rachel asks, next to her.

Quinn looks at the three tots on her plate and shifts uncomfortably, pushing her tray further down the line. “I’m--the smell. It’s--” And she gestures at herself, all _look at me, Ma, the size of an elephant_ , because she’ll be damned if she ever discusses her current state out loud.

“Those are lacking in baby nutrients, though,” Rachel says, with a frown.

“Yeah, well, … what am I supposed to do? Mercedes eats at school. I have no money, and I’m not going to ask her parents to buy me a different lunch. It’s--”

She doesn’t even _mean_ to say that much, but the bowling ball in her gut has a mind of its own when it comes to emotional spillage. Sometimes it legitimately feels like she just needs to pee all the time because how _else_ is her body going to process all those tears, which is ridiculous. She’s taking friggin’ AP Biology--obviously she _knows_ there’s no connection between her bladder and her tear ducts.

She sighs.

Rachel gives her a look that’s a little pitying (and Quinn’s hands tighten on her almost-empty tray) and then just says, “Come with me. I’ll show you a secret.”

The baby’s hunger is what nudges Quinn along the line and then out of the cafeteria. Some part of her wonders if maybe Rachel will sing for some food outside in the courtyard or something--not the worst prospect, because it might put the baby to sleep, which is all Quinn really wants right now anyway.

A sleeping baby means two minutes of not feeling like she’s going to throw up _a child_.

Rachel takes her by the hand and drags her over to the AV department, and then past it, towards the auditorium, and then finally to the wings backstage, and opens up what looks like a costume chest over there.

Quinn almost says something legitimately dumb like, “I’m not desperate enough to eat _clothing_ ”, but then Rachel pulls out a little cooler box--the kind that Quinn’s mom used to bring to six a side practice, before soccer was deemed to be too unfeminine a pursuit for her--and produces a few different Tupperware containers from them.

“Is this--what is this?” Quinn finally asks. She almost sits down, because some part of her brain still hasn’t registered that _Preggo Quinn_ can’t actually get up and down from floors the way that _Cheerio Quinn_ could, but Rachel is pulling over one of the plastic, hardcover chairs from the make-up table already--and so she sinks down onto that instead.

“It took me a long time to find a place where I could eat my lunch in peace,” Rachel says, cracking open one of the containers. “I guess some habits die hard.”

Quinn says nothing to that, because there is nothing she can say. _I’m sorry_ would sound disingenuous, and anyway, Rachel isn’t asking for her sympathy.

Rachel is just offering her a container with mixed crudites and saying, “The broccoli contains folic acid, which will be good for her brain development--and honestly, given that she’s fifty percent Noah Puckerman, you could use all the help you can get there.”

Quinn snorts unwillingly, but gamely eats a spear.

“And, the carrots contain Vitamin A, which is good for eyesight and healthy skin. Not that I’d worry too much about that. Your skin is, well,” Rachel says, looking away with a mild blush after a moment.

“Actually,” Quinn says, picking up a carrot and examining it closely. “I don’t have great skin. I just have parents that shelled out for ProActiv for most of middle school, and then learned how to take better care of my T-zone.”

Rachel looks back up, clearly surprised, and then asks warily, “Why are you telling me this? Are you going to kill me and hide the body in the band pit?”

Quinn rolls her eyes. “Has anyone ever told you that it’s not actually a requirement for someone who likes singing to be _so dramatic_ all the time?”

Rachel somehow just smiles in response, but then she frowns again--and it makes her nose crinkle, and Quinn experiences another one of those awkward jolts when she realizes it’s really, really cute--and says, “I think this is the one thing I missed out on in not having a mother.”

“Drama?” Quinn asks, digging around the Tupperware to see if there’s more celery in it, because the baby is clearly craving it today.

“No. … you know. Advice. On girl things, and beauty. Everything I know, about how to present myself, I’ve had to look up. And it’s obviously been with very mixed results, if your MySpace comments from last year are anything to go by,” Rachel says.

Quinn fumbles the Tupperware and watches it fall to the ground, and _Cheerio Quinn_ is reaching for it long before _Preggo Quinn_ can go _bad idea, girl, you don’t have the dexterity for this anymore_ \--and so she ends up just sort of butting heads with Rachel halfway to the ground.

“I’m--I--” she says. Or _stutters_. God, she doesn’t _ever_ stutter. She clutches her head where it hit Rachel’s unsurprisingly hard skull, and gives up on making words.

“It’s okay, Quinn. You’ve changed a lot,” Rachel says, softly, steadying her on the chair with cool, firm hands, and Quinn’s eyes drop to Rachel’s lips unintentionally.

“You just--it’s not _you_. It’s what you wear, and how you act,” she finally says, because it’s as close to an apology as she can bring herself to make right now.

“Yes, well, either way,” Rachel says, softly, and Quinn bites her lip and lowers her eyes. “I know that you’re still deciding on what to do, but--that little girl could learn a lot from you, Quinn.”

“Like how to be a complete bitch?” Quinn asks, and there it goes; more tears. Always more tears. She wipes at her face before sitting back, pushing her sore back into the chair.

“Like how to be strong, when really unexpectedly awful things happen to her. And how to look great, even when seven months pregnant,” Rachel says, shoving the rest of the vegetables back into the Tupperware and closing it with a snap.

Quinn wants to ask so many things, but this tentative alliance between them has been composed of just two brief moments, and she just _can’t_. Not when her nerves are already so shot, and not when she wants to hurt Rachel for making her feel worse than she already does about everything.

“Maybe it’s karma,” she finally says. “I tell you you need to get sterilized, and God decides this is an appropriate punishment.”

Rachel smiles faintly. “Maybe Christianity has a different approach to his work, but the God I’ve been brought up to love doesn’t believe in retribution.”

The silence isn’t that follows isn’t awkward; it’s just unusual, and Quinn’s head is spinning with things like _how do you know about baby nutrition_ and _your dads may not have given you ProActiv but at least they love you the way you are_ , and _I wish we could be friends--real friends, the type who hug, but I’ve never had friends like that and I don’t know why you would be the first._

Then Rachel breaks through all the noise with a simple, “Do you mind if I practice this song I’ve been working on for regionals? I don’t want to be rude, but we’re running out of time”.

Quinn just nods, because it’s not rude. It’s determined, and without Rachel’s focus, this club would be nothing more than a sad has-been’s doomed pet project.

The baby drifts off within the first five lines of _Somebody to Love_ , and Quinn follows shortly afterwards, because Rachel at about an eighth of her normal volume is surprisingly close to a lullaby.

*

Rachel is the last person to meet Beth.

Quinn’s bone tired, and weary, and tired of crying about the life that she’s leaving behind here, in the choice that she’s making today.

Puck has been solid for her, and her mother has been surprising, but it’s not until Rachel tentatively steps into her hospital room and says, “I know that today was a loss on every level, but I’m told that you’ve given us a little bit of the perfection that I’ve been craving anyway” that she actually feels like it’s really over.

The baby is asleep on her shoulder, and its tiny hands are fisted against her neck, and Quinn watches as Rachel moves closer and sits gingerly on the edge of the bed.

“How are you feeling?” she asks, again in that voice that Quinn’s never heard her use anywhere else; the voice that means she’s swallowing her larger-than-life personality, and working on being exactly the right size for the room she’s in.

“Like I got run over by a bull,” Quinn says, honestly, her hand warm against the baby’s back.

Rachel doesn’t say anything else; just watches both of them for a long moment, and then takes out her mobile phone and snaps a very slow, very carefully framed picture.

“I know you won’t want to see this for a very long time--but it’s here, if you do, okay?” she says, finally, reaching for Quinn’s hand--against the baby’s back--and covering it with her own for just a second.

For one moment, Quinn wishes that Rachel would lean over just a little bit more and kiss her on the forehead; it’s the kind of affection that people show each other in movies, but not one person in her life will actually ever show her, because it’s a sign of weakness, wanting soft and comforting forehead kisses.

She’s been weak long enough now, and she’s delivered the excuse she had for it. It’s over.

“What are you naming her?” Rachel asks.

“She’s not mine to name,” Quinn says, softly, as the baby coos for just a second and then settles again.

Rachel gives her a knowing look, and Quinn sighs after a second.

“Maybe I’ll tell you when I’m ready to see that picture.”

Rachel runs her finger down the baby’s tiny, tiny legs, and Quinn realizes that she’s done pretending they aren’t friends or can’t be friends.

Rachel is the only friend she has, and she couldn’t really do much better.

*

The weight just won’t drop.

Some women apparently experience this, so it’s not more karma biting her in the ass; it’s biology, and it’s really crappy biology that means that her pregnancy pounds aren’t going _anywhere_ fast.

She looks in the mirror and sees far too many reminders of a girl she left behind three years ago, but who plagues her nonetheless; constantly reminding her that food is the enemy, and her discipline isn’t what it used to be.

Of course it’s not. She spends an hour every day wondering if she made the right decision, and then another hour angry with herself for questioning what was clearly the right choice to make.

It takes a month of summer for her to even manage jogging two miles, and she hates it. She hates every second of her own failure, and the imperfection that is her life now.

It’s not made any better by the fact that Finn and Rachel are--whatever they are now. She’s not seen anyone from Glee, but it’s all over his Facebook that he apparently told her he liked her right before regionals.

It just feels like a massive betrayal. Somewhere between the time when she went into labor and Rachel stopped by her hospital room, to be _exactly_ what Quinn needed, apparently Finn got to her, and now she’s out of reach again.

Her lungs heave when she slows to a halt, considering what the hell she’s even thinking right now.

Finn is _dating_ Rachel, maybe. All Quinn wants is that tentative friendship they’ve worked on in the past few months, and why does it matter who Rachel is dating?

Because Finn is Quinn’s ex-boyfriend. That’s why.

Her legs pick up pace again, and she pushes herself harder and faster than she has all summer, until she suddenly realizes where her legs are carrying her. Or _have_ carried her.

This is so weird. It’s going to be impossible to explain. What can she even say? She wasn’t planning on going further than the end of her neighborhood, and now she’s half a suburb over in Rachel’s front yard, feeling like she’s going to pass out.

She has no choice but to ring the doorbell, because she can barely even stand anymore, and a tall black guy opens up--one of Rachel’s dads, obviously--and, at the sight of her (lungs bursting, sweating insanely, probably so white in the face and purple in the lips that she looks like she’s at risk of a heart attack), immediately calls for Rachel.

Ten minutes later, she’s lying on their sofa and drinking some water while Rachel hands her a wet washcloth to put on her forehead.

“I don’t know _what_ you were thinking,” Rachel says, clearly annoyed. “You could’ve gotten sunstroke, and passed out somewhere and _died_. Are you not aware that labor is a serious physical trauma and that most women need six months to fully recover from it? Why isn’t Santana putting a stop to this? Surely _she’s_ in charge of your physical fitness prior to your rejoining of the Cheerios?”

Quinn’s vision is still blurry, but one part of that stands out anyway. “Why do you know so much about pregnancy?”

Rachel flushes, maybe with anger or maybe with something else, and says, “Our friends are all complete idiots, and you had no parents to rely on. _Someone_ had to figure out what to do in case of an emergency.”

It’s probably a clear sign that she did in fact jog herself into a delirium that that just makes her smile, until she remembers the rest of Rachel’s questions and just says, “Santana and I aren’t friends.”

“Of course you are.”

Quinn shakes her head and says, “Allies, maybe. Sometimes. But we’re not friends. You’re the only friend I’ve--”

Rachel’s hand, pressing the washcloth against her forehead, stills abruptly, and then they stare at each other. Quinn’s literally seeing stars, and she kind of wants to tell Rachel, because clearly it must be like a dream come true on some level. (They’re not gold, but whatever. She can work with what she’s got.)

“Why are we friends?” Rachel asks, softly.

“Because. You’re--I don’t know,” Quinn mumbles, taking another careful sip of water, and then closing her eyes.

“Do you even like me? Or do you just like that I’m incapable of holding your past cruelty against you, or being cruel in kind?”

What kind of stupid question is that. “Don’t be ridiculous, Berry.”

“Well, I’m sorry if I’m not entirely clear on the protocol,” Rachel asks, flushing _again,_ but this time it’s clearly with anger. “I’m not exactly sure what the normal reaction is to finding out that someone who belittled and tormented you for years suddenly considers you a friend.”

Quinn says nothing, and keeps her eyes closed tight, because this suddenly feels like a much bigger moment than she’s ready for it to be.

“I’m not seeing Finn,” Rachel says, unexpectedly. “He--told me that he has feelings for me, and I told him that I wasn’t entirely sure I reciprocated them.”

“Oh,” Quinn says, and blinks her eyes open, slowly. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I don’t think we can’t be friends as long as Finn stands between us,” Rachel says, curtly, and then her lips flicker in and out of a smile. “So I just wanted to make it clear that he doesn’t. And we can.”

“Okay,” Quinn says.

This conversation is the weirdest thing that’s happened to her all year, and she gave birth to Noah Puckerman’s _baby_ a few months ago.

“What do friends do?” Rachel asks, incredibly hesitantly. “Is there--I’m sorry, I know that’s a really strange thing to ask, but--”

Quinn feels something awful twist in her chest, and maybe Santana _is_ right. Maybe she’s gone soft all over, and not just in the head, because the only thing she can think of saying is, “I have no idea, but the top two students on the honor roll should be able to figure it out together.”

When Rachel flips the wash cloth on her forehead and says, “Well, as your _friend_ , can I ask why you felt it necessary to run yourself to death today?”, the thing inside her Quinn’s chest relaxes and then blooms into something else altogether.

 _Oh, shit_ , she thinks, like a deer in headlights while her very recent and only friend looks at her with an amused little smile.

*

Rachel is obviously incapable of being normal about anything.

Six months ago, she was doing research on babies, for Quinn’s sake. And now she’s doing research on _friendship_ , for Quinn’s sake.

Just to even out the ridiculousness of that somewhat, Quinn shows up at her house a few weeks later, much closer to the end of summer, with a Belleville middle school yearbook. She’s ready for whatever it is that she needs to do, here: offer a fumbling explanation of a few things about herself that she’s not really capable of dealing with, and that may or may not explain why she spent so much time being a miserable shit to Rachel.

Rachel makes them both vegan milkshakes with some newfangled apparatus that her dads have bought as a reward for her grades this year, and they sip them on the back porch while Rachel looks through the yearbook and finally flips it shut.

“He said I wasn’t fat, that night,” Quinn says, as a final point. “It’s--I can _see that_ , obviously, but I’m not sure I believe it most of the time.”

Rachel slurps the last bit of her shake and then says, “I know what you mean.”

“You’ve _never_ been fat,” Quinn says, because Rachel’s house is littered with pictures of her at all ages, and she’s always just been a little star--arms out wide, beaming at the camera, eyes shining with uncensored emotions.

“No. But I’ve sometimes wondered if I’m actually as talented as I think I am,” Rachel says.

Quinn almost laughs and says, _are you kidding_ , but maybe the point is that this _is_ something they have in common.

“This conversation never leaves this … porch,” she says, in her sternest head cheerleader voice.

Rachel just rolls her eyes and says, “Yes, Quinn, because who would I tell? And who would even believe me, when you look the way you do now?”

“Shut up,” Quinn murmurs, with a lot less conviction than she should, because that niggling thing in her chest really likes the way Rachel is looking at her right now.

*

On the third day back at school, Rachel gets slushied.

Quinn only stops from mauling one of the juniors on the Cheerios because Santana yanks her back by her shirt just in time, and then drags her over to the girls’ bathroom on second for a serious conversation.

“Are you _insane_?”

“No,” Quinn snaps. “I’m establishing a new world order, and it’s one in which _you_ can kiss my ass, and Rachel Berry is off limits.”

Santana gapes at her, and then narrows her eyes to say, “Holy shit, they weren’t kidding when they said that pregnancy would addle your brain. You’re fucking _joking_ if you think I’m going to listen to either of those things. You don’t tell me what to do.”

Quinn smiles, and suddenly they’re back in last year, because Santana _is_ still afraid of her, even though she hides it well, and honestly--they know too much about each other for their relationship to ever be anything but acrimonious.

“Berry’s off limits, or Coach founds out how you spent your sweet sixteen allowance,” she says, with a hint of warning.

“What the fuck _is wrong with you_?” Santana asks, looking and sounding incredulous. “You’d use that kind of ammo on _Rachel_?”

“She’s a friend,” Quinn says, plainly. “You know how I spent my summer, Santana?” She waits for the pause and the guilt. “Of course you don’t. Because I wasn’t the social currency you’re happy to spend at the end of last year, and you wouldn’t have cared if I’d died.”

“So what? Rachel was pathetic enough to stick around while you lost your floaties and now you’re BFFs? Give me a break, Fabray. I might heave,” Santana says, not entirely convincingly.

“She’s a good person, and frankly, I could give a shit how you feel about it. It’s done,” Quinn says, before heading out the bathroom and heading down two flights of stairs to find Rachel, who will be in the auditorium or cleaning up in the bathroom next to it.

“Are you okay?” Quinn asks, leaning against the doorway as Rachel throws away the last few sodden towels she’s been cleaning herself up with.

Rachel looks equal parts unimpressed by the Slushie and amused by something Quinn can’t put her finger on. “I don’t know--is Santana still alive?”

Quinn feels her face relax in a smile she’s not sure she’s ever displayed at school at all. It’s a real smile, and it somehow only shows itself around Rachel, who annoys it out of her on a regular basis. “Killing her isn’t the worst thing I can do to her, believe me.”

Rachel washes her hands, shakes them in the sink, and then walks over to Quinn, before standing on her toes and kissing her on the cheek. “You’re very sweet, for a homicidal maniac. And yes, I’m fine. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the--”

“Yes, it will,” Quinn says, wondering if she’s as red as she feels, and there’s something funny about the look on Rachel’s face right now. “Um. You’re welcome.”

Rachel looks like she knows a secret.

It bugs the crap out of Quinn for the rest of the day.

*

The new world order establishes itself quickly, and Quinn doesn’t even need rat out Santana’s boob job to get it done.

She’s pretty damn proud of herself, even though she knows that _Cheerio Quinn_ wouldn’t approve of her reasoning for changing the entire social food chain at McKinley, and _Preggo Quinn_ seems to just think she’s going about whatever it is she wants in a kind of stupid, roundabout way.

She tells both of them to shut up, obviously.

*

It abruptly becomes clear to Quinn that Rachel agrees with her the pregnant part of her mind.

They’re having lunch in the auditorium--not because they’re hiding, but because Quinn legitimately suspects that the entire glee club would descend like vultures on Rachel’s delicious packed lunches--when Rachel licks some hummus off her fingers and says, “I remember quite clearly when you were the bane of my existence. It seems almost impossible to believe now.”

Quinn smiles, but half-heartedly, and finally says what half of her has been pushing her to say for a very long time now. “I’m really sorry. About everything.”

Rachel acknowledges that with a small head tilt, and otherwise lets it go.

They exchange Tupperware silently, next to each other on the floor now that Quinn can reach it again without humiliating herself--a heinous floral skirt that’s really too short to be decent, and the swash pattern of the reigning social order, almost overlapping on a scuffed wooden floor.

“I’ve been thinking a lot, lately,” Rachel says, mixing the couscous that Quinn’s just passed over a little more. “About this friendship we have, and how it’s developing.”

“You think too much,” Quinn says, dryly. “We eat junk food together, we paint each other’s nails, and we both agree that Johnny Depp is a weirdo and Kiera Knightley is the real reason to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. I think we’ve mastered the art, okay?”

“Yes, I agree, but … there’s something else,” Rachel says, carefully.

Quinn tenses unwillingly. “There is?”

Rachel bites her lip and then says, “I’ve consulted approximately fifty eight different websites on how to raise teenagers and process teenage emotions, and they seem to universally agree on one thing.”

“Which is?” Quinn asks, taking a sip of Vitamin Water from one of the two bottles she got them earlier today, and looking at Rachel with a raised eyebrow.

Rachel goes a distinctly unflattering shade of red when their eyes meet, and then she says, “It’s apparently not normal to want to kiss your friends.”

All that throwing up during pregnancy has taught her wonders about relaxing her gag reflex, which is the only reason she manages to swallow all the liquid in her mouth.

“I’m--oh, God, I shouldn’t have said anything,” Rachel says, sounding immediately panicked.

“No, it’s--it’s okay--” Quinn stutters, watching as Rachel covers her face with her hands, their lunches forgotten on the ground between them.

“I’m _so_ sorry--you’re an abstinent Christian and you’re really popular and the same websites also indicated that it’s normal for girls to have unwanted hormonal reactions, so I think that’s just what this is, and--”

“You made my baby do backflips,” Quinn says, cutting her off. “When you sing. Every time, she’d twist and kick and then settle. The only reason I got any sleep in those last few months is because you, and glee, and these lunches we have where you practice things for competitions.”

“I...” Rachel says, looking at her in confusion. “I’m glad? I don’t know what--”

“You made _her_ do backflips, but I think _I’ve_ read somewhere that babies only respond to their mother’s emotions during gestation, which means that really, you’ve made _me_ do backflips, and I’ve almost kissed you at least five times these past few months,” Quinn finishes, in a breathless rush.

She wonders if she looks as mortified as Rachel does.

It’s the complete opposite of romantic, and she’s pretty sure Rachel will _never_ forgive her for that. (She’s not even sure she’ll ever forgive herself.)

Rachel finally clears her throat, looking down at her lap, and then says, “I can’t believe you just used your foetus and gymnastics in an evolved, awkward metaphor to express your feelings for me.”

“Metaphors are important, though,” Quinn says, when she can finally tell that Rachel isn’t going to scream or cry or run off or do any of the other million of dramatic things she could be doing.

Instead, she just gets that third smile--her absolute favorite--and the brush of Rachel’s lips against her own.

“If you want a real kiss, you’ll have to take me out to dinner and somehow redeem yourself for this travesty of a confession,” Rachel says, in a tone that’s clearly teasing and clearly also reserved just for Quinn.

Quinn rolls her eyes, with a muttered, “Whatever, Berry”, because the last thing Rachel needs to see is how charmed she is.

*

Their first date? Another completely average day.

Quinn’s starting to think that ‘average’ has just lost its meaning, though, if the barely suppressed smile on her face is anything to go by.

“We should thank Noah for being too ignorant to use a condom. We would’ve never made it here without him,” Rachel says, seriously, when they’re walking back up the steps to her house.

Quinn grimaces “Yes, because thinking about how I got _pregnant_ is a good lead-in to a kiss.”

“Who says you get to kiss me? Presumptuous much, Fabray,” Rachel says, leaning back against her front door and raising her eyebrows.

“ _Who says_? My very empty wallet, for starters. Where do you even pack that much food? You’re the size of a thimble,” Quinn says, poking her in the ribs.

“You should know by now that I don’t believe in doing anything halfway,” Rachel says, pulling Quinn forward by her coat, and there’s something really gross about how they’re stupidly smiling at each other, but it’s also kind of nice.

“I don’t know, Rach; maybe you should demonstrate that some more,” Quinn says, finally, when she can legitimately not _take_ how close she is to Rachel anymore.

Rachel laughs, and she swallows the sound in a perfect first kiss.


End file.
